JOURNALIST MATT REES TO SPEAK ON MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT

The all-too-familiar conflict between Israelis and Palestinians tends to obscure the internal struggles within each group, says Time magazine Middle East Bureau Chief Matt Rees, who argues that any lasting peace plan must take these internal divisions into account. Rees will speak at Bryn Mawr on Monday, Nov. 22, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in Carpenter B21.

Rees, a journalist with many years' experience in the Middle East, recently published Cain's Field: Faith, Fratricide and Fear in the Middle East. Cain's Field explores fissures within both Israeli and Palestinian societies through the stories of individuals on both sides of the conflict. Among the subjects Rees interviews are the family of a Palestinian killed by fellow Arabs and a psychiatrist who treats elderly Holocaust survivors who were mistreated by a Zionist establishment ashamed of their "weakness" in the face of oppression.

Says New Yorker Middle East correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg: "Matt Rees is a particularly able foreign correspondent who knows the Middle East better than almost anyone. His writing is free of cant and oversimplification, and in Cain's Field he has looked past the clichés and sureties of the 100-year war between Arab and Jew and come up with a story that is as original as it is compelling."

Rees' talk is sponsored by the student organization BrynPAC.

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